Saturday, July 8, 2017

Most people agree that the MMO genre is in a stalemate with itself; it wants to change but doesn't know how. I feel this completely as I love older-styled MMOs which influenced the industry that is today, but I agree; things need to evolve.

But there's a key feature/aspect that is needed for the MMO genre to become LIVELY again. Sure the MMO market is larger than ever, but these MMOs bore us, die quickly, offer nothing of note or we simply play them because there's nothing better. What is missing? Why did older MMOs such as Asherons Call, EverQuest and Vanilla WoW grab us and hold us for so many years? There are many factors such as societal timing, polish and actual content but at the end of the day, people played MMOs to connect.

Ask anyone! The biggest aspect missing from almost every single current MMO is the lack of a community or social features. MMOs have become streamlined singleplayer experiences with multiplayer tacked on. This is the exact opposite of what MMOs are about, we need to breath new life into the social interactivity which these MMOs should be providing, but just don't. Remember when you entered that raid with your buddies and even some strangers and you spent hours clearing out challenging mobs and bosses, forming bonds with you fellow players and experiencing something so unique and "important" that made you fall in love with these games? You just don't experience that anymore.

In order for MMOs to evolve into something that grabs us again, we need to fall in love again!

TL;DR Before we can evolve MMOs we need to bring back the true nature of MMOs which is social interactivity

Edit: I'm not saying there's absolutely no social interaction in MMOs anymore. I'm saying that it has gone down hill BIG TIME. Yes the hardest difficulty of raiding will make you social, but 3/4 of the experience is not social anymore.